Every so often you will notice a player in an online poker room who is on automatic pilot.  I don’t mean that he is tired or bored or is a bad calling station.  Usually,  in fact,  this is a relatively good player who is seeking to maximize his hourly win by playing in many different games at the same time.

Players who play in more than one poker room have a major hole in their game.  They usually cannot respond to moves against them in a thoughtful manner.  They must respond automatically,  since they are engaged in many hands at the same time.

This often works to their advantage.  They don’t have the time or inclination to get personally involved in feuds at the table or to overthink their betting action.  They bet,  raise,  call,  or fold strictly as a product of their cards,  position,  and the prior betting action.  Their play becomes machinelike.  While they miss out on some profit from some players whom they could exploit better if they thought critically about their play and what it meant,  they gain absolute dollars by allowing themselves to be in many games at the same time  --  just exploiting the bad play of their opponents with their straightforward style.

Some of these players make their money by limiting themselves to playing super-premium cards.  They play them very strongly when they have them,  betting aggressively pre-flop for example with Aces,  Kings,  and Queens.  If they remain with the overpair or if they hit trips on the flop they bet strongly until the River.  Otherwise they tend just to check after the flop.

There are simple countermeasures you can take against them.  But for the most part this is limited to

$7 MILLION PRIZE POOL

But they’re not the target of the move I am about to unfold.

The players you want to target with this move are actually the better players.  They realize that there is a lot of money to be made against the typically timid low-limit No Limit players by inserting some automated aggression into their repertoire.  So,  typically,  they will raise pre-flop with many hands and then automatically put in a continuation bet of about half the pot after the flop if they are first to act or if the hand is checked to them.

Get it?  They bet pre-flop with many hands  --  not just the super-premium hands like Aces or Kings.  And then,  on the flop,  they push out a small bet in an effort to steal the pot.

This works well against the typical player because most of these low limit types don’t want to mix it up unless they have a very strong hand.  Someone who bets consistently can pick up many,  many blinds.  And if they don’t win before the flop,  they can often pick up the pot by exploiting their weak opponents’ tendency to discard their hand automatically to a significant bet if the flop doesn’t hit them strongly.

So here’s the countermove.  Pre-flop,  tend to call these players when you have position on them.  And then,  when they make a stab at the pot on the flop,  you go over the top,  tripling their bet with a raise.  Expect to take down the pot.

In live games,  of course,  your opponent would remember what you did.  He wouldn’t be so likely to believe that your raise meant that you hit the flop.  After folding once or twice to your aggressive move,  he’d tend either to be more selective after the flop,  or try to steal back by coming over the top of your raise  --  presuming that you would release your re-steal attempt.

But the beauty of your online poker play is that your opponent has no memory of your action,  since he’s engaged in three or four other games.  Your move is just a minor blip in a series of moves he has had to briefly consider in the past six or seven seconds.  Each time you make your move against him he sees it as an action that represents great power.  And so he shows you the respect you don’t deserve by folding his mediocre or bluffing hand.

Of course you have to be careful.  It’s certainly possible that his continuation bet is a ruse  --  and that he did wise up to your move after all.  But I can tell you that I have been in games with these guys and made this move a dozen or more times against them over the course of a couple of hours and never gotten any return fire.

The thing is that when they really do have a legitimate hand after the flop,  they don’t come out for half the pot,  as they do with their continuation bets.  Instead,  they bet the full amount of the pot.

Here’s an example of this from a recent online session.

I was playing in the $200 buy-in $1/$2 Blind no limit game on Party Poker.  The player in question was four to my right:  four players in front of me.

SB$1,  BB$2,  fold,  raise to $7,  fold,  fold,  fold.

My action.  I have  (Ah9s).  Normally I fold that hand to a pre-flop raise like that.  But not against this guy.  I call his $7.  The other players fold  --  as they usually do when he raises.

The flop comes 3s3h5d.  He bets $9.  I suspect that he is just on auto-pilot and making an automatic continuation bet.  So I raise by $18.  I don’t need to risk a large amount.  If I'm right he’ll just fold.  Sure enough,  he does fold.

This is repeated many times over the course of the next couple of hours.  I call his raise that clears away the rest of the field and then raise his continuation bet and steal the pot.

Would he have eventually have gotten wise to me if I hadn’t left the game after three hours?  Who knows.  But I can tell you this.  There was a stretch of 15 minutes when I pulled this move five times and my opponent responded in exactly the same way each time.

It’s important to notice that this was a full table.  In short tables and surely in heads up action my strategy doesn’t work as well.  Because it’s highly unlikely that someone can sustain a short game or a heads-up match while playing in many other games.  But when your opponent is taking on the world  --  or at least another 30 or 40 players in three or four games,  make sure that you maximize your winnings by taking advantage of his distraction and lack of player memory.~~